In 2018, the Ministry of Education approved a new gap-year leadership center for Arab youth to be run by Desert Stars in the Negev. It also approved ongoing funding for two existing centers. Leadership centers are part of government efforts to close informal education gaps in Arab society. They are an alternative to pre-military educational programs (mechinot) in Jewish society and cater to Arab youth's social and cultural background. The two existing centers are the Sanabel Center in Wadi-Ara operated by Ajyal (part of Ha'shomer Ha'tzair), and the high-tech focused Bridgetech in the Negev operated by AJEEC-NISPED. Participants in leadership centers engage in personal empowerment; civic participation and 21st century skills; academic and career training and counseling; volunteering; and Arab and Israeli culture.

New Parliamentary Committee to Address Arab Employment in Civil Service

A new Parliamentary Committee on Arab Employment and Social Equality will address Arab representation in civil service jobs. According to the Citizens Empowerment Center in Israel (CECI), Arab citizens make up 11.3% of civil servants overall, with heavy concentration in only a few ministries (see adjacent chart). In addition, Arabs are nearly absent from top management tiers. The Committee, chaired by MK Ahmed Tibi (Joint Arab List), will be jointly run by the Knesset Committee and the Labor and Welfare committee and will also look into employment of Arab women and Arab academics in universities.

Public Discourse

Public Protests Against Arab Integration into Jewish Communities

In recent months, several events have taken place in which Jewish residents protested publicly against Arab integration into the community or Arab use of community facilities. These included Arab real-estate purchases in Kfar Vradim and in Afula,Bedouin use of a public swimming pool in a Negev kibbutz, and a proposal to open a Jewish-Arab kindergarten in Karmiel. Several civil society leaders say the frequency and nature of these protests suggests that anti-Arab discourse used by political leaders is not only more prevalent, but now also more acceptable to express in public among local leaders and citizens.

In May, protests along the Gaza border led to the most violent confrontations between Palestinians and Israel’s military since 2014. On May 18th, Jewish-Arab protests in Haifa of the military's use of force led to violent clashes with police, detainment of 21 Arab citizen demonstrators, and in particular, injury to an Arab NGO leader over the course of his arrest. The events in Haifa within the larger context of confrontations on the Gaza border and the US embassy move to Jerusalem, provoked strong response from within Arab society and heated exchanges between Jewish and Arab national political leadership. This update summarizes the events, Arab citizen response, related discourse and impact on state-minority relations.

A recent assessment by the Knesset Research Center shows that crime and violence within Arab society are significantly higher than in Jewish society, with five times the number of murder victims. In 2017 alone, 70 Arab citizens were killed due to murder and manslaughter, with another 23 killed since the beginning of 2018. The scale of violence and related concerns over law enforcement and police services are repeatedly cited as a primary concern of the Arab public. According to a 2017 poll by the Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish Arab Cooperation at Tel Aviv University, violent crime is a greater concern than discrimination, economic development, or Palestinian issues. However, longstanding tensions between Israel's police and Arab society are a top-challenge to law enforcement. An Abraham Fund Initiatives position paper from June 2018 describes problems of under-policing in terms of enforcement against crime and over-policing related to perceptions of Arab society as a security threat.

Following weeks of protests of plans to complete demolition of the unrecognized village of Umm al-Hiran, 170 Bedouin families came to an agreement with the Authority for the Development and Settlement for the Bedouin and the Israel Lands Authority. The families agreed to move to a neighborhood in the nearby town of Hura and accepted land and monetary compensation in return. The unrecognized village has been the subject of significant controversy over a 15-year legal battle over the rights to the land and plans to develop the Jewish community of Hiran in its place. Confrontations turned deadly in January 2017 when police action to demolish homes resulted in the shooting death of a Bedouin resident and vehicular death of police officer, sparking further protests and elevating tensions in state-minority relations.

A study published in March 2018 by the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel reported on Arab women entering Israel’s labor market and examined developments in education and employment, with a first ever breakdown for Muslim, Druze, Christian and Bedouin women. According to the study, gaps remain between Jewish and Arab society, but among Arab women many positive trends are forming which "can lead to substantial changes in the integration of this population group into the labor market, and thus serve as a source of future growth for the Israeli economy."

In a joint partnership, NCJW and the Dafna Fund presented an overview of issues related to feminism and women and girls in Israel. The research and Executive Summary provide insights into the field, government and political representation, public discourse on women's rights, advances being made, and the landscape of non-profit work. The report shows growing representation of Arab women in politics; increased discourse on Arab feminism; opportunities for Arab women’s leadership, including programs for Bedouin women "to acquire key skills in community activism and engage in social action"; and an increase in Arab women in higher education.

In January, the Adva Center published its annual social report, examining trends in income inequality through household income and individual wages and the inequality in schools, higher education, housing, and health. Their findings showed that while inequality among Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel still exists, there are improvements in wage levels in Arab localities; an increase in higher education among Arab households below the poverty line; a decrease in infant mortality rates among Arabs; and an increase in life expectancy among both Arab men and women.

JDC's Institute for Leadership and Governance and The Abraham Fund Initiatives created a new program to fill a gap in Arab leadership on boards of major civil society and public organizations by training, placing and on-boarding high-level Arab business people, civil servants, professionals and civic leaders into lay positions. Many social and community development organizations serve in Arab society, but few have Arab leaders on their boards. The first cohort of 15 began training in April.

In March, the Masira Fund's NGO Forum, which brings together 11 Arab-led NGOs serving people with disabilities, met for shared learning and coordination, including a discussion with Prof. Ahmad Natour of the Hebrew University and President of the Israeli Sharia Courts on the perception of people with disabilities in Islam. The Masira Fund is collaboration between Arab business leaders, philanthropists and JDC-Israel to raise awareness about and serve Arab citizens with disabilities.

Over the last five years, more than 300 Jewish and Arab students from 10 different schools took part The Ein Shemer Ecological Greenhouse "Growing Together" collaborative learning program. This year, students from Barta'a and Pardes Hana participated in the first "Makers" component of the program, jointly building water and wind energy solutions and presenting those to parents and the community at the closing event in March.

New Program Promotes Arab PhDs in Haifa

The Rothschild Caesarea Foundation launched a program in partnership with Neuroscience Department at the University of Haifa and implemented by Alrowad for Science and Technology, to support Arab science PhDs. It includes full scholarships for three Arab women neuroscience doctoral candidates currently at the University of Haifa, and workshops for Arab doctoral candidates in science and technology from the University of Haifa and Technion to develop skills in grant writing, advanced computer applications, managing research budgets, English language presentation, as well as personal empowerment and networking.

The TEC (Technology, Education and Cultural Diversity) project uses technology to bring together Arab and Jewish educational staff and students for joint activities and exploration of both cultures and identities. This March, the TEC4Schools Program at Mofet Institute held its tenth International Online Day, with over 3,000 Jewish and Arab children from 120 schools and various guests including staff from the Ministry of Education participating in activities in Arabic and Hebrew.

This May, Sikkuy held a conference on public transportation in Arab communities, calling on experts to discuss gaps in services; how best to use resources allocated under GR-922; issues related to infrastructure; and additional funding needed to ensure existing gaps can be closed. During the conference Sikkuy released a Hebrew language guide to help Arab municipalities collect data, map community needs and create better interactions with governmental bodies to maximize results.

Min HaBe’erot brings together Jewish and Arab educators and students around religious text study and discussion of their identities and cultures. This year, the program widened to include 80 students from the El Bironi School in Jdeide-Maker and the Reali School in Haifa, who had their fourth encounter in May.

Recent Awards and Recognitions

Desert Stars wins President's Award for Volunteerism for its work bringing together Bedouin teenagers and young adults—boys and girls, men and women, from different families and tribes—around united leadership development for the Negev Bedouin community. It received the award for addressing current needs in Israeli society with originality and deep commitment.

Kher Albaz, Co-Executive Director of AJEEC-NISPED, received the Negev Pioneers Award at the Negev Conference 2018, held in March, in recognition of his efforts fostering socioeconomic development in the periphery, specifically his contribution to partnership and cooperation between the Bedouin and Jewish communities in the region.

Bathsheva Moshe, CEO of UNISTREAM, which promotes business entrepreneurship among youth in underprivileged communities, and Ola Baker Salameh, Founder of Sebana Medical Biomed, Israel's only medical bio-pharmaceutical company founded by an Arab woman, were selected as the top "40 under 40 promising young adults of Israel" by Globes Magazine.